AFUT1, A RETROTRANSPOSON-LIKE ELEMENT FROM ASPERGILLUS-FUMIGATUS

A repeated DNA sequence used for epidemiological studies of the human opportunistic pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus has been characterized. I t is a retroelement of 6914 bp in length, bounded by long terminal rep eats of 282 bp, with sequence and features characteristic of retroviru ses and retrotransposons. A 5 bp duplication site was found at its bor ders. This element, designated Afut1, encodes amino acid sequences hom ologous to the reverse transcriptase, RNase H and endonuclease encoded by the pol genes of retroelements. Comparison of the peptidic sequenc es with other putative polypeptides of fungal LTR retrotransposons sho wed that Afut1 is a member of the gypsy group. This is the first repor t of a transposable element in A.fumigatus. Afut1 is a defective eleme nt: the putative coding domains contain multiple stop codons due exclu sively to transitions from C:G to T:A.